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Missed Opportunities · Boundary Corner Podcast

0:56
And welcome back to the Boundary Corner Podcast, a part of the
1:00
College Huddle Network. Along with my partners, Brian
1:03
Siegel, Jonathan Tally and Shelton Moss.
1:05
I am Curtis Wilson and this episode is brought to you by
1:08
Doctor Jeremy Counts down at Counts Family Pharmacy, your
1:11
friendly neighborhood pharmacy located 301 S Main St. in
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Maury. Welcome back gentlemen, welcome
1:47
back. Week 1's in the books.
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Week 1 is in the books, not the outcome we wanted, but we're
1:54
back at it. We're going to talk about it,
1:55
we're going to break it down and then we're going to move on to
1:57
Vandyman. Orange did not win games.
2:03
It didn't, they looked good. Looked great in the game though.
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Popped they. Did not win the.
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Game but but we learned we learned some things about the
2:13
team. I think we did I think most I I
2:16
think most of fan base probably if I had to sort of, you know
2:19
sum it up collectively was somewhat encouraged by the
2:22
performance. I think with the way, well, not
2:24
everyone. We'll, we'll not beat me.
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Not beat me. Not, no, Not Pete.
2:29
But wait a second, didn't Pete be on this very program?
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We're going 6:00 and 6:00 and then he gets upset and I was
2:35
like what you said we were going to be 6 and 6.
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I think his his assessment is that the South Carolina team we
2:43
saw is not a very good team, at least not at least not the team
2:47
that he thought they would be. So relative to that he didn't
2:52
think we played well. That, that that's, that's my
2:55
take away from from what he said and what we've talked about.
2:59
I'm going to I completely disagree with what because that
3:03
defensive line is nasty. Them linebackers is nasty.
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They got solid secondary. I I think what it is we're
3:10
pissed off because we saw moments right?
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I know that we could have taken advantage of.
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I think I think they've got them pegged right.
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Well, 15 because sellers is a monster, but we can get into all
3:24
that. So how's your Labor Day weekend?
3:28
Y'all do anything fun after Sunday or before Sunday?
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Sit around the house and. Watch the whole work to do man,
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you got a new house. Sit around the house, tried to
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watch some football. Hey man, shout out to Bill
3:42
Belichick. All I'm going to say for right
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now, shout out to Bill Belichick and his girlfriend.
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Hope they haven't. Been on the sideline during the
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game, man. I hope they're having a lovely
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evening. Have Michael Jordan in the
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building. Hey man, it could always be
4:01
worse. That's what I'll say sometime.
4:02
I. Don't know.
4:04
It could always be. Yeah, yeah.
4:06
I mean, we lost. For us.
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It could always be worse, man. TCU was straight trying to
4:14
punish them. The third string running back
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was running through people like that looked bad.
4:20
So anyway, that's all I did on Labor Day for real, Was just
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kind of watch, watch some, watch some TV, put some boxes away,
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things like that, Brian. Well, we made a day trip down to
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Raleigh on Saturday, hung out with some friends, did a little
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bit of this, little bit of that, headed back.
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Obviously, you know what I did most of most of Sunday?
4:48
Watch the loss, unfortunately. But you know, it wasn't a bad
4:51
day overall. Watching some games, had a few
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drinks, made some pot roast, you know, there, there there were
5:00
worse things that happened elsewhere.
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So I I wasn't doing too bad over here.
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How about you, Sheldon? You doing anything or are you
5:08
working? Oh no, I was working.
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We went down to to Rock Hill, SC for our volleyball tournament
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here at with William and Mary and they came back up and caught
5:17
a couple soccer games. I was pretty, pretty exhausted
5:20
by the time that the the weekend was over.
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But obviously I caught the, the UNC debacle the other night,
5:25
which was fun. And then on on Tuesday, I had
5:29
the distinct privilege of interviewing Brian Randall, the
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former Hokies legend. He sat down with us for about 10
5:35
minutes on our we do it. We have a Tribe sports podcast
5:37
that we do. And he is the for, for those who
5:40
don't know, he's the recently hired quarterbacks coach here
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here at William and Mary. So it was great.
5:45
It was great to talk with him. He's really cool dude.
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That's, that's awesome, man. It's awesome you got to
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interview a hokey legend like that.
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It's awesome. Look at Sheldon doing a little
5:54
bit of everything, doing all these.
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Yeah, yeah. If you want to, yeah, head head
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to tribeathletics.com/podcast. It'll go out tomorrow if you
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want to, if you want to hear what Brian had to say.
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So just plug in that. Definitely, definitely and
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myself. Nephew Had a nephew's getting
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married early next year. Had a little shower for them.
6:14
We drank some beer, we ate some BBQ.
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The Southern Plenty place in Bryan in South Austin.
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I know you've probably been there.
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The banana pudding. OK.
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Boy, really good. Yeah, that was a paid
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endorsement. No, I wouldn't have paid
6:33
endorsement. It needs to be, though.
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But you know, it is my it is Wednesday.
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But we always tell the truth whenever we get together after a
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game, and I can't wait to hear what not only the guys here have
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to say. We've chatted, of course, and
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texted back and forth and couple phone calls here and there, but
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we tell the truth on Tuesday or Wednesday.
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What went well, what went bad, what we didn't expect, and what
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we can do better moving forward. So whoever wants to start it
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all, like there were some bright moments in this game on Sunday
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and and Brian, Brian's ready like his.
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His guys now know that I think we all kind of expected, but we
7:14
were unsure about, but we I think we expected and that's
7:18
that's a big defensive improvement.
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The defense for most of that game played as good as you could
7:25
expected, especially against what was touted to be a above
7:30
average to very good overall offense.
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And obviously a quote UN quote Heisman contender and you know,
7:38
future NFL quarterback in sellers there for South
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Carolina. I thought we did a good job of
7:45
mixing them up, getting keeping him confused, keeping him unsure
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of where he wanted to go with the football with the way we
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were mixing coverages and mixing the fronts up there it was.
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It was a really, really good job, really good game playing by
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Seifkis. And I think, you know, for the
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majority of the game, the players executed it pretty well.
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Sean, what about you, man? What, what, what impressed you?
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What went well for you watching? I know you were running all
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around, so I don't know if you called it live or afterwards.
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And we know you, you dive in the stats and everything.
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What jumped out to you is what went well.
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Well, definitely the defensive line.
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You know, you look at the stats, 13 pressures generated against
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Lenore sellers, which I thought was pretty good in the run game.
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I thought they were really good. I know it was it was 5.7 yards
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per rush when you take out the sacks and the kneel downs, so
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that the rushing total was a little bit misleading in US ES
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favor. But still I thought for the most
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part, you know, we got some push in the D line.
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They didn't look like they were getting, you know, blown, blown
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off the ball every single snap. So I was really I was really
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impressed with them Linebackers, you know, missed a few tackles
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here and there. Safeties too, had some, you
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know, discipline, discipline issues, but I thought the
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defense was pretty good. And again, I'm not a, you know,
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play calling, defensive play calling expert.
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But it seemed like for the most part, you know, guys were in the
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right position to make the play and sometimes they didn't make
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the tackle, which means it's probably more talented coach.
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Tally, what did you feel that you called me on Sunday about
9:18
9:00 and then you talked 20 minutes?
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Yeah, it was. I mean, Sheldon just did a lot
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of stuff, you know, defense looked, defense looked.
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I'll say it a little bit better than.
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So here's the thing. I didn't go to Atlanta because I
9:33
didn't expect much. Like it's three hours away from
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me. So I didn't go to Atlanta
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because I didn't expect us to be in the game again.
9:40
I had my what I thought would happen, but realistically, I
9:44
thought we would kind of show up the same team as we've been.
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Couldn't handle things getting pushed around.
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You didn't see much of that, You know, you seen a lot of good
9:55
stuff, seen some bad stuff too. But Sheldon kind of summed it
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up. I mean, I seen a lot of people
10:00
rotating in on that defensive line.
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Like it said, he played 29 people on defense or something
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like that. You don't need it.
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You know, going through a long season, the more people that you
10:13
can get reps and the more people you can get in the game that's
10:17
doing something positive, the better #2 what you did wasn't
10:22
positive. Oh, oh, that's this right here.
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But hold on, Kelly, I'm going to throw up some because something
10:30
that you talked to me about on Sunday night, Sean kind of
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noticed it too. So I want you to hit on that
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because you, like you said that to me straight up.
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Oh yeah. First thing that came out of
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your mouth. Yeah, it's like, of course
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people now some people say South Carolina ain't going to be good.
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I don't know what they're going to be.
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I know they're big. I know they're SEC school.
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I know that they have recruited, you know, pretty good over the
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last couple of years and they have a lot of NFL talent on that
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roster. So when you see our guys who I
11:03
don't, you know, from my perspective, didn't think we had
11:06
a lot of, you know, NFL guys ready to go next year on the
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roster going against their team. We didn't look out of place.
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You know, we looked big or we looked or as big we looked as
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physical, a lot of times more physical.
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We have more sacks than them and they've got arguably the best
11:27
defensive player in the in the country on their team.
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So again, I think that we had a good game play and I think we
11:33
we, we looked the part. Jarrett Ferguson definitely has
11:37
been a from what I've seen an upgrade thus far.
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And we weren't scared like you seen the, you seen the guys, you
11:46
know, putting a nose in there. I mean, even the announcers who
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I freaking hated listening to talked about, you know, hearing
11:54
what it's like it was car crashes happening on that field.
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Haven't I haven't heard that in the last couple of years.
12:00
It's been a lot of rap and roll tackles.
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We was hitting people. So that was good to see.
12:07
Yeah, for me, the one thing and me and Brian, me and you talked
12:11
about this for a few minutes day after the game is that might
12:15
have been the most best prepared Brent Pride team in three years.
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Like it it like there weren't some people were upset about the
12:25
timeouts at the end of the half. Some people weren't.
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I I think it was managed OK from where we were situationally, it
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was like it's not going to do anything when once his name went
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down, it's like, well, ain't no need to call the timeout because
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they can give you the timeout. But overall it like they had a
12:42
game plan. They knew what they wanted to
12:44
do. And then, and I think this
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probably has noticed more than one person, but me and Brian got
12:53
a couple texts saying I think they've made more adjustments in
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the first half than they did all of last year during games.
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And I don't know if y'all saw that.
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I can't see that with my eyes. But Talia, you shaking your
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head, I'm assuming you saw some things that were different after
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a few drives. Yeah, there.
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I mean, hell, the first drive, but somebody wasn't on the field
13:15
on the first drive. So I ain't going to get into all
13:17
that. But I will say we did see some
13:21
different adjustments after the first drive and then just all
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throughout the game, you seen some, you seen some different
13:28
things happening. Now again, I'm not, I'm not
13:31
glazing a loss, you know what I'm saying, because we still
13:33
lost. But at the same time, I do have
13:36
to look at it's a long season. That was not a game that I
13:39
counted as a win. I had us as a seven and five
13:44
team. Still think we can get there.
13:46
Watching that game may have made me think we can go to 8:00 and
13:51
4:00, depending on, you know, what the quarterback does.
13:56
But definitely look at Robbie. Robbie got his hand up.
14:00
He said it was him. I know.
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Yeah, I know. It was Robbie watching you.
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Know it was Robbie. But it was.
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I mean it, they go back and watch it and see a lot of
14:09
different twists, you know, a lot of ET twists, different
14:11
things like that, that they were doing that I'm not really used
14:15
to us doing. It was just APR beating his man,
14:19
APR bending and getting around the corner, you know what I'm
14:22
saying? Like that was kind of what our
14:25
pass rush entailed last year. Yeah, 4 sacks and maybe from 4
14:31
different people. I have to go back and look. 6
14:34
Because there were some half sacks.
14:37
Emmett Laws Fall Kamari, Jaden Keller got one on the blitz,
14:42
Kelvin Gilliam, Ben Bell all got accredited for a sax.
14:46
That's yeah, that's what you got to do.
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And and that, by the way, you talk about that twist stunt,
14:52
that move that Bell and Copeland pulled on the the left side of
14:55
that line. Yep, Yeah, I sat here and
14:58
watched that and and Brian, my assumption is if it's if that
15:03
technique is pulled off the way, nobody is going to stop that.
15:07
Nobody like maybe an NFL lineman that is beastly.
15:11
But watching that technique, when Kamari comes over and
15:14
Copeland wipes, it's just like, oh, he's dead.
15:18
Yeah. I mean, one of the things we
15:19
talked about this offseason is that we knew we weren't going to
15:21
have an APR on this team. And, and we knew we, we, we
15:26
might not even have Ananias peoples on this team, but we
15:29
needed to be able to replace their production and then some
15:32
in aggregate. And I think we we shown that we
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definitely have that capability going forward as long as you
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know, what we saw against South Carolina was the aberration.
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Yeah, what what about this? I I agree with Robbie on this,
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Kelly. Robbie's the defensive guy.
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I can say this a lot of people, and I'm one of the people too.
15:52
That's like when somebody's been at school for so long, it's
15:56
like, man, you get what you're going to get, you know what I'm
15:58
saying? Like, I'm not the kind of person
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who says, OK, this is the year he takes a step, you know, and
16:03
he just becomes this man child or something.
16:06
But when I seen Keller and Woodson on the field compared to
16:14
the other guys not saying they did horrible, it was a
16:17
noticeable difference. Those two plan to run or chasing
16:23
down, you know, ball ball carriers and things like that.
16:27
You can see a difference in the other linebackers we have at
16:31
this moment. I think #30 and 26 was the other
16:35
two I've seen on the field. 2626 was getting.
16:39
He looked like what's in that first, like the kind of close to
16:43
the same size, skin colors close to the same.
16:46
So I was like, is that him? Is it not?
16:48
It wasn't it was not it. Was now now.
16:52
Short, on the other hand, made a couple good plays.
16:55
I mean that one where Sellers broke from Copeland, I mean,
17:00
anybody else the way Short tackled that would have been a
17:04
sack. It's Sellers.
17:06
You ain't going to do that to Sellers.
17:08
But I think overall, defensively you, you feel pretty good.
17:12
And like you said, but it's also tallying saying playing 29 guys
17:17
against that caliber of talent on offense with Nick Harbor,
17:21
with face on, with sellers, you know, they're rebuilding their
17:25
offensive line a little bit. But to say you played that many
17:29
guys and still were were creating pressure, you still
17:33
were stopping them short, that says a lot about how they've
17:37
retooled the defense. And I think that is a big step
17:41
going forward because now, I mean, there were certain times
17:45
last year when there's certain guys not on the field
17:46
defensively, it was just like. Gas, gas, gas.
17:53
Gas. I'll throw this up there.
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We can we can talk about that a little bit.
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I I saw the PFF grade as well. I will say the consistency was
18:03
better, but he did have some negative plays.
18:06
So it's kind of, you know, you kind of take that, you know, as
18:10
it comes, I guess I thought from a total snap count, he looked
18:14
better than he than he has anytime in Blacksburg.
18:17
But that doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, we couldn't
18:20
see some other guys step up and and and steal some of those
18:23
snaps in the future. So I don't.
18:25
Know 100% I'll let Shelton pull up the grade because Shelton
18:30
does that stuff and while I'm while Shelton's looking that up,
18:33
let's flip the offense. You know, not the best only no
18:37
touchdown scored only 11 points, but she's still again what went
18:41
well. And I do think the law firm of
18:43
Green and green is going to make a formidable combo this year.
18:49
They neither one probably to the point of Jay Lane yet, maybe 8
18:54
next year. But you know, when you look at
18:56
what those two guys did overall on Saturday, they had some,
19:00
there was a drop. There was a bad penalty by both.
19:03
But overall Sunday, you know, they're going out here.
19:07
Diamond Green 3 for 94, eight and five for 71.
19:12
I mean, you you do that for 12 games that's 1000 yard receiver
19:17
and that's the guy right at the doorstep of 1000 yard receiver.
19:20
Yeah. So I think I think wide receiver
19:23
1 and 2 is pretty. Yeah.
19:28
And we had and we saw opportunities.
19:30
We saw opportunities that I think we didn't necessarily see
19:32
for guys in a lot of games last year.
19:36
Lot lot of catchable balls, lot lot of opportunities for them to
19:38
really go out there and show their ability as a receiver.
19:41
Not just, you know, routes that are coming open, but you know,
19:45
opportunities down the field where you know, it's a
19:47
one-on-one match up and you let your guy go up there, make a
19:49
play and and both greens did a good, good job at that at
19:53
different times of the game. Tell you about to say something.
20:01
I forgot I'm reading these comments.
20:02
Just laughs. It ain't it ain't no telling
20:06
about. I'm gonna let, I'm gonna let the
20:07
show go on. Let the show go on Free game.
20:12
What Free Caleb? Where's that?
20:15
He's free. He missed his OneDrive.
20:18
We'll wait till November to see what happens next.
20:22
Right. So by the way, that's if y'all
20:26
noticed that nasty ugly safety was.
20:29
Supposed to be there. By the way, if you go back and
20:31
look at the tape, looks like he he got caught peeking in the
20:33
backfield on the play action there and.
20:36
Great, Caleb, I'm pretty sure that was.
20:38
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was bad back then.
20:40
It. Was.
20:41
Yeah. Yeah, that was a cover.
20:43
Well, the whole thing is that was one of the first times all
20:46
day we had went into like a cover one because we've been
20:48
kind of playing cover 3, cover 2 shells all day.
20:51
But again, I'm going to say something.
20:54
Why it's good. Cephus knew they were just going
20:57
to pound the ball. They were up.
21:00
They had they had been getting, they had been gashing, but they
21:03
didn't get in 234234. They were trying to run out the
21:06
clock and that's just straight up it.
21:10
Another thing that caught my, I won't say caught my eye, didn't
21:13
have the best stat day, but just the way he ran and Tally, I know
21:16
we you mentioned it right before.
21:18
Hawkins may not be tuned, but it's not a downgrade to the
21:22
bottom of the barrel. No, I don't think they got a lot
21:26
of. I think they got a lot to figure
21:28
out in the running back room who they want to get carries to.
21:32
You know, it's going to depend on health.
21:35
It's going to depend on, you know, what we're playing because
21:37
I've seen some stuff out of everybody who got on the field.
21:40
It just comes down to who's going to be kind of the guy.
21:43
You know what I'm saying? Stewart didn't play.
21:46
Hawkins did a better job than I thought he would do.
21:50
They kind of kept talking about, oh, he came from, you know, D2
21:54
or wherever he came from and you know that it seems a big a
21:57
different stage than he played on, but he didn't look scared.
21:59
You know, the only thing again, I as a fan for the last couple
22:06
of years, we've seen Tooten in the backfield and you don't
22:09
realize how good he is till you don't have him.
22:12
You know, Hawkins would break 1 tackle and he just don't have
22:15
that burst to get away like Tooten.
22:18
Not saying he don't have burst, but he don't have that burst
22:20
that Tooten did. Because when Tooten would when
22:22
he would bend the corner, he's when he gets downhill, he was,
22:26
he was, he was, he was 10 yards up the field.
22:29
You know, I don't, I don't know that we got a back like that
22:31
right now, you know, so I think Hawkins did a good job for what
22:36
he was, you know, for what he was in the game for 'cause they
22:39
was hitting him, you know, but he wasn't, he wasn't a easy, he
22:42
wasn't a easy tackle and he got some hard yards.
22:45
I'll be interested to see what the young man can do Saturday.
22:49
I don't even want to say the rest of the season.
22:50
We'll just talk about this next game.
22:52
One game at a time, one game at a time, Shelton.
22:56
Anything else on the offense that you felt went well as you
22:59
were doing your research? I'm having to think because I
23:07
don't think. That much went well, but.
23:10
I mean. Well, that's just, I mean, they
23:12
just did it. That's it.
23:13
It wouldn't. Last, well, I guess I'll, I'll
23:15
give, I'll give the online credit.
23:16
I thought they they did an OK job opening up some holes.
23:21
I thought pass protection, pass protection was as good as you
23:24
could probably expect to be against a front like that.
23:27
I don't think we had this sort of, you know, just obscene
23:30
gaffes that we kind of had last year.
23:32
So I think they showed some progress and my hope is, as I
23:35
talked about, hopefully Matt Moore can coach these guys up to
23:38
where later in the season. Yeah, thanks for that.
23:42
Yeah, I'm trying. I'm I'm grasping at straws here.
23:47
The other. Thing I've got, the other thing
23:48
I've got is like the preparedness.
23:50
I felt like on offense, we we look prepared.
23:53
We didn't always execute, but it looked like there was a there
23:56
was a game plan. Things were open at times we.
24:01
Knew we knew what we how we wanted to attack South Carolina.
24:03
We were doing it consistently. It's just that a lot of times
24:09
the guys, especially when we crossed the 50, especially on
24:11
those key downs, we just didn't execute the way we needed to to
24:15
keep the ball in our hands and get points on the board.
24:17
And we have a whole bunch of dumb ass penalties, you know
24:20
what I'm saying? I mean, we had like 4 penalties,
24:22
I think maybe 40 yards. But I think Garrett jumped off
24:25
sides on kind of crucial third down or at the beginning of the
24:28
game. But you didn't see a whole bunch
24:30
of you know, pre snap penalties and things like that that I'm
24:35
used to us doing. I think that when we continue in
24:39
this in this episode, that chat y'all will see everybody thinks
24:47
that we played really good. I think.
24:49
And I see people keep putting drones, drones, drones up here.
24:52
And I'm not defending drones by no means because I want to win.
24:56
But when you keep listening and if you go back and watch that
24:59
game, I don't think it was as clear cut as people think.
25:02
He got pressured a lot and that defensive line is good.
25:05
He has to be better, especially at taking the layups, making the
25:11
easy throws. He has to be better at that.
25:15
You know, a 10 yard throw, we got to have it, but it wasn't a
25:18
lot of standing around and let me just throw this ball to you.
25:22
He was on the move and guess what?
25:24
He's not a pro. I mean, he's not a pro.
25:26
He he, he has some development that he still has to go through.
25:32
He has some development he still has to go through.
25:34
But he was a lot of moving. He was a lot of moving around.
25:37
He ain't, he ain't Lamar Jackson.
25:39
He may not be good. He may not be good at throwing
25:41
on the run. I don't know.
25:42
We'll see. We will see.
25:45
One last shout out to Trent for that Bend that corner, the jail
25:48
reference. Bend that corner.
25:51
Oh yeah. Good one.
25:55
I thought about that too when Curtis said it, but I couldn't
25:57
make the job. You couldn't make the job.
26:00
Get it in there next time. Get in there.
26:02
One last piece of what went well.
26:04
God, we're going to miss this man so much next year.
26:06
John Love, good boy, man. Player the.
26:11
Game Savior. New Savior?
26:13
Well, it's it's to a point now if we cross the 45, he might can
26:21
make this kick because that one Saturday, that was an NFL kick
26:26
when you, I mean dead pipe down the middle, halfway up the
26:30
crossbar. Yeah, I mean, it would have been
26:33
good at least another 5 yards out. 6060 John loves a savior
26:39
because that man can kick in next year.
26:43
We ain't going to have it, but he is going to make an NFL
26:45
squad. Oh yeah, he.
26:47
Played on Sunday this past week and he'll be playing on Sundays
26:49
next year. Damn, right, there we go and we
26:51
get little brother next year. So absolutely.
26:55
All right, so you know, we start with sunshine and roses, but we
26:59
know it was some bad shit on Sunday.
27:03
Who wants to start it, where you want to start, how you want to
27:06
start? Because there was quite a few
27:07
things that we can talk about and I'm sure the chats going to
27:10
tell us even more as we get into it.
27:12
Well, Tally, you hit on some of it, so I'm going to let you lead
27:14
on that first one there. Go for it, man.
27:17
Oh, what went bad? Yeah.
27:19
Inconsistency at quarterback. You know, I think Andretti was
27:22
asking about it, so we'll get into it.
27:26
Karen has to be much better to win, to put a team on his back
27:31
and go win a game. He has to be better.
27:34
I just that's what it is. It's more that goes into it than
27:37
just him being better by himself.
27:40
But I think he's not fully understanding his ability, you
27:47
know, and I get it, he should already know this and he's been
27:50
playing a long time, but every game is different.
27:53
He was, he was running for his life a little bit in that game,
27:56
but I think that he was seeing a little bit of ghost as well
28:00
because sometimes he was breaking the pocket and he could
28:02
have took 5 yards and got out of bounds, 10 yards get out of
28:05
bounds. And I think he's thinking, I got
28:08
to get the ball down the field, I got to make a play.
28:10
He's pressing. I don't think he has to do that.
28:13
I think he's good enough to break that pocket, get the five
28:18
yards live to play another down. So the inconsistency with Karen
28:22
has to be better even for us to win Saturday.
28:26
Like he's got to do some soul searching and figure out what he
28:29
wants to do moving forward. I'll talk a little bit more
28:32
about it later on, what I think about the quarterback situation.
28:36
But I'll tell you all this, if there was another quarterback on
28:39
the roster that was better than #1 they would be playing that,
28:44
playing itself. I heard some people say I put
28:46
Pop in it. If Pop was in that game, you
28:48
might as well put my son in there.
28:50
That's in 10th grade. He would have got killed.
28:53
Pop would have got murdered by that team.
28:55
He would have got murdered. That's the main phrase in there.
29:00
First of all, read the read the phrase real quick tally just so
29:03
you know. Who said this, Wes?
29:05
He said drones. He says drones is drones.
29:08
He he's the best we got. But like a tampon, we have to
29:12
use him to his full capacity. Why it's got to be a tampon.
29:17
How could? It be.
29:18
Like a dirty How could it be like a dirty cooler or something
29:22
when you camping? Why did it have to be?
29:26
I don't know, but you know what? I, I that's, that's one for the
29:29
you. Threw it.
29:30
I was like, oh man, oh man, I, I, I couldn't even get.
29:33
Through it. Yeah.
29:35
Well, all right, Brian, what did you have just watching in
29:38
general with Kyron and the inconsistency this day here?
29:41
You know, Tally talked about it. I mean, I think the biggest
29:44
thing for me was, was missing the layups and, and feeling like
29:47
he had to, when that pocket did break, break down.
29:51
Like he had to make a play on that first interception.
29:55
Like #1 You can't throw that where you did.
29:59
And if you do throw it, you got to throw it in the back of the
30:01
end zone where only your guy can get it.
30:04
And you know where you are on the field.
30:07
You, you got to, you got to understand the situational, have
30:11
the situational awareness of where you are on the field
30:13
because you're, you're at John loves field goal range there.
30:17
Like you're, you're in field goal range.
30:18
That's three points you're taking off the board by trying
30:22
to do too much. And then we had other situations
30:26
where you got to, you got to mostly clean pocket.
30:29
You got to you got a wide receiver breaking open on a big
30:32
are on a slant and the ball's a little behind.
30:36
The ball's not on time. It, it's, it was just the little
30:39
things that just the inconsistency that happened at
30:43
times where you are, you have established a drive, you're in
30:47
a, you're in a spot where you can start to look at putting
30:49
points on the board and now you're punting because you're
30:52
not doing the little things right.
30:56
Shelton, what were you able to dig up about the performance on
30:59
Saturday? Statistics and deep brand?
31:01
A little perspective. Yeah, well, Kyron didn't grade
31:04
out particularly poorly according to PFF.
31:07
So, you know, some of that might have been, you know, his wide
31:11
receivers, you know, the pressure he was dealing with.
31:14
Obviously, you know, you can't fault a guy for no having guys
31:17
in his face. You know, every other play as a
31:20
as a as a defense, South Carolina generated 23 pressures
31:23
in total. So you kind of have to imagine
31:25
how much that kind of hurt Kyron.
31:27
And that was a big negative for me, of course.
31:29
But you know, he had he had two turnover worthy throws according
31:32
to PFF, which obviously Brian mentioned, you know, that's not
31:36
an ideal, you know, percentage just, you know, based on how
31:40
much you're throwing the ball. So, you know, I know some of his
31:44
drops and and Congress receivers could play better.
31:49
But I also think it seems to me like in the second-half, Vt
31:52
played a little bit more conservatively.
31:54
And I think that was probably because Monty just wasn't really
31:56
trusting car and storing ability.
32:00
So I, I think, and again, that hurt the offense because again,
32:02
we know this team isn't going to, you know, run the ball
32:05
extremely well. So if you're limited in terms of
32:08
what you can, you know, what place you can call, that's not,
32:11
it's not good against a front like that.
32:13
So I just thought, you know, he was, he was, you know, from a
32:18
standpoint of like technique and footwork and stuff like that.
32:21
I thought we saw some kind of regression, you know, of course,
32:23
or what we're seeing early, early in last season as well.
32:26
Got it. I want to say the one thing
32:28
where to me the bad with Kyron was there were some plays like
32:32
design roll outs and stuff. Kalimenu talked about this on
32:36
Sunday night design roll out. They took away the options and
32:39
he kind of hesitated where if he just as soon as the first three
32:44
one was to Benji, he threw it. Benji caught got tackled a line
32:47
of scrimmage because the guy was on his back.
32:50
If there were several of those, he just goes, I'm not saying
32:54
he's breaking 30, I'm not saying he's even breaking 20.
32:57
But what I'm saying is it's five, it's six, it's 7 upfield.
33:01
Now you're second and three. Now you're manageable where you
33:04
can go downfield, you can make other decisions.
33:08
So it was the inconsistency because a couple of those deep
33:11
balls, I know shuffling, you've said in the past his deep balls
33:14
where his struggles are, a couple of his deep balls were on
33:17
the absolute money and where that intermediate range where he
33:20
had done better in the short range.
33:22
That's where the struggles lie now, is it?
33:25
Is it because it's a new system? It's new routes, Guys are
33:27
breaking a different spot, they're coming through different
33:29
areas. That could be the case.
33:32
He did miss part of spring, he did miss part of summer.
33:36
So the whole thing with him you talk about the regression is can
33:40
it be a progression? Can we get to put in those
33:42
catchable balls out there? Well, you got to remember it's
33:45
still the first game of your quarterback in a new offense
33:49
with majority new receivers. I mean, there's really only one
33:53
receiver that he's worked with heavily in the group that he's
33:58
been practicing with both going back to 2023-2024 and now this
34:04
year. And he didn't even get to work a
34:07
lot of that in this offseason. So, you know, you, you wonder if
34:11
this is going to kind of be a work in progress, if some of
34:13
this is going to come along as, as we get a little bit deeper
34:16
into the year, you know, the hope is that you clean up enough
34:20
between now and next week that you know, you, you can at least
34:23
win in the process, right? So I don't, I didn't see a ton
34:28
that, you know, if, if Kyron can hit a couple more of those that,
34:33
you know, he was missed a little bit on, you know, all of a
34:35
sudden, you know, you, you get a few more points on the board and
34:38
you feel a little bit better about the way the outcome turned
34:41
out there. So we'll we'll see if the
34:44
footwork and the other consistencies with decision
34:47
making kind of get cleaned up as the season goes along though.
34:52
100% let's go to the other one, even though they were few and
34:56
far between it. Well Shelton, you got to numb
34:58
probably, so I'll let you miss tackles.
35:01
Do you have the miss? Tackles I can, I can, I can get
35:04
probably about 30 seconds get the miss tackle.
35:05
I just I, I will say just one more thing on on Kyron, go
35:09
ahead. If you, if you want to, if you
35:10
want to, you know, put this in a positive.
35:12
He did grid out extremely well when he was soaring from a clean
35:14
pocket, about a 90 grid, which is elite.
35:17
So obviously he struggled a lot when he was under pressure.
35:20
But the one caveat to that is that he was throwing mainly in
35:23
that short, you know, what is 0 to 9 yard range.
35:25
So mostly, you know, short easy throws.
35:29
So again, if if you're if you're looking for Silver Linings, when
35:32
he was protected, he was pretty good.
35:35
But we also just need to see things, see how things play out
35:38
in the future. If you can kind of, you know,
35:40
play a little bit better when he's under pressure. 1 100%
35:45
there all right, so shelton's going to look it up and we're
35:48
going to get the rate, but probably one of the biggest
35:51
changes and if somebody put it in the chat was we get a sack.
35:56
Elijah fall breaks through and knocks the shit out of sellers.
35:59
All fumbles goes back 20 plus yards.
36:03
The very next play is one of the worst missed tackles.
36:09
I don't understand because didn't use leverage.
36:12
Look, Charlie's just shaking his head.
36:14
Brian's just giving me a cock eye to Look and then Shelton
36:17
Dorsey. But when Burgos missed that, it
36:20
was such a deflator because it's second and 33.
36:22
They're out of field goal range. They ain't going to be able to.
36:27
At best, they're maybe trying to get back to the 35 to have a
36:30
chance to kick field goal. It was that was a momentum shift
36:34
because if you tackle him right, there would have been a TfL or
36:38
at the line of scrimmage. It's second or third 33.
36:44
They don't go down, they don't score another point, they don't
36:47
score 3 points. That was deflating Shelton.
36:51
There were some others. I know Kamari missed the sack,
36:53
Michael Short missed the sack. How many total missed tackles?
36:56
Because it felt like it was more than two or three.
37:02
It was definitely more than two. PFF has 15 total.
37:05
So as a percentage of total tackles, that's about 27%, which
37:10
is obviously not good. For perspective, South
37:14
Carolina's missed tackle rate was about 12%.
37:18
So I think if you're under, I don't know exactly what the what
37:20
like the average is, but you definitely want to be under like
37:23
15, you know, low, high teens at best. 27% is not not good.
37:29
Yeah, yeah, 15% or under is usually kind of what your, what
37:33
your target is. If if you're getting much above
37:36
that, it's that's a poor tackling game.
37:39
And, and I mean, we saw it, we saw that there was at times
37:43
where tackling was an issue. First drive in particular, you
37:48
know, that drive with, with Virgo's missing that tackle.
37:51
There were a couple other instances in there where, you
37:54
know, late the game. I think we saw a couple on
37:58
sellers where you know, that extended drive, you know, later
38:01
in the game there. So you know, you you had some,
38:04
some definitely consistently there.
38:07
There was missed tackles kind of throughout the game, but it's
38:09
certainly weird. It's ugly head at at some bad
38:11
times as well. So before Tally jumps in on
38:14
this, we got to create a metric because missed tackles is one
38:17
thing because you can miss a tackle, but if you gain tackle
38:19
and the guy gets 1 yard and gets tackled, next we need the missed
38:23
tackled like ratio. Like OK, you missed 15 tackles
38:27
but it only accounted for 43 yards.
38:30
You missed it, but you guys were.
38:32
All over it. So this tackle to yak.
38:34
Exactly. But Yak's different.
38:36
That's just contact that doesn't count from this tackle.
38:38
We we got something there, Sheldon.
38:40
Yeah. The one thing, one thing that's
38:42
kind of adjacent to that is average depth of tackle.
38:45
So that's where you track for like linebackers and different
38:47
department and that's what I was looking at last year.
38:49
Like Keller, I think Keller and was it what Keller and Lawson I
38:53
think last year had horrific average have their tackle rates
38:57
because they were getting when they were making the tackle.
38:59
They were they were so far behind the line of scrimmage.
39:02
So that's why sometimes, you know, tackle tackle numbers can
39:04
be misleading. You want to look at like, where
39:06
is the guy actually making the tackle?
39:08
So that's where that's one metric we can look at to try to
39:11
evaluate like, OK, how much, how well are these linebackers
39:13
actually, you know, getting to the ball carry before he's
39:16
getting to that second level? Yeah, so all your tackles are at
39:19
5 yards as a linebacker? Are they doing?
39:22
Anything. Right.
39:23
Helpful, not great, Bob. I mean, you're, you're not,
39:26
you're not surrendering a, you know, 30 yard run, but you only
39:31
need a couple of those runs to get a first down.
39:33
If you're not, get the stop, get close to the line of scrimmage.
39:37
Tally, we'll kick it to you now. Yeah, now, so just talking about
39:42
the missed tackles and stuff like that, to me, I feel like
39:45
it's a little bit worse because you're playing so many players.
39:52
You're coming off the bench. You should be fresh.
39:55
You don't know when you're going to get an opportunity to shine
39:58
because you're rotating in and out with a lot of guys.
40:01
Burgos, we'll just talk about him.
40:03
You got to make that tackle, man.
40:05
Like that's Showtime to shine. If you want to get, I mean, he's
40:09
he's a senior, right? He's got to be a senior.
40:11
He's been there forever. What other time do you have?
40:15
You know you, I don't know how many plays he got, but again, I
40:21
know he's rotating in with a lot of different guys.
40:23
You should come in. You should be fresh, fresh,
40:26
ready to go and come in and make an impact, you know, because
40:30
that's what some of the D lineman did.
40:31
That's what I was seeing. A lot of those guys is rotating
40:34
in. Hell, I don't even know how they
40:35
name. What's the white dude name?
40:37
Heisman. Heisman.
40:40
I ain't going to say I thought he wouldn't be good.
40:44
I thought he'd just, you know, get in and do it.
40:47
He was, he was making, he was moving the line, you know,
40:50
coming in, making an impact. That's what you that's what you
40:53
want to see from rotational pieces.
40:55
And when you don't get that, you see, you know, burst plays and
41:00
things like that that we seen on Sunday.
41:03
So I'm hoping that they clean that up.
41:06
And probably, again, I know I don't know much about secrets,
41:10
but if he's rotating all these guys in and you're getting in
41:13
and you're not doing what you need to do, you probably won't
41:16
see them more time and they'll probably rotate somebody else
41:18
in. And sometimes that's what you
41:19
got to do. Let's shout out Grayson Wimbish,
41:22
forget the the Heisman in on the the preview panel as his
41:26
surprise breakout player for the defense.
41:31
Yeah, by the way, I just looked at that play, it would have been
41:33
a six yard loss had completed that tackle.
41:37
It would have been at their 30. Six, yeah, that was just a big
41:41
one. I don't want, I don't want to
41:42
just yeah, I don't want to just keep harping on that one.
41:45
I know, but it pissed y'all but it yeah, that was a big one.
41:48
You know, you had the momentum going.
41:51
You got the momentum going. That place probably would have
41:53
went crazy. You know, that's the kind of
41:55
place that we keep missing. You need to keep missing those
42:00
players like that. Listen, it's the old.
42:02
It's the old man with the fishing hook and the money.
42:05
Yeah. Jeff, yes, yeah, you go get it
42:08
real quick. One last piece of what went bad,
42:12
the special teams error second year now on the opening game in
42:18
error where one of the guys does not line up one of the Gunners
42:21
does not get on the line, least that punt return.
42:26
So last year Vandy the air with the double numbers led to them
42:31
kicking a field goal. Oh, that's not that big of a
42:34
deal at the end of the game. It was because if they don't get
42:36
that field goal early, we have a 10 point lead going into the
42:39
last couple minutes, not a seven point.
42:42
In this case, it basically leads to them going up 9 at that
42:48
point. And Stu, Stu, he, he got rid of
42:55
two coordinators. You supposed to be just doing
42:58
special teams. Well, you know what, I've seen a
43:01
couple things, special teams. That was kind of a little iffy.
43:06
I get it. You know, Tuck part return is
43:08
hard. You know I ain't, I ain't never
43:10
been a part returner, so I wouldn't say that's easy.
43:12
But you got to catch the ball like you can't let it roll 20
43:18
yards. You know, I do what you got to
43:20
do to stop it where it's kicked. I think we was letting the ball
43:23
roll a little bit too much. Sometimes we have people coming
43:27
out of the end zone, getting to the 15 or 16.
43:31
Just let it go through the end zone, down in the end zone.
43:34
Take it at the 25 S besides. That ball bends at the three.
43:38
Get away from it. It's going to come in the end
43:40
zone. Don't try to be a hero.
43:43
Right. Just stuff like that besides
43:45
that, but that that punt return or that punt team was definitely
43:51
bad. There's some guys out there
43:53
looking like me on the punt on the punt team.
43:56
I don't know why they was out there.
43:58
I'm just wondering because they weren't catching nobody.
44:05
Anything else to add on that or anything else of what went bad?
44:08
All right, let's go around now. And anything you weren't
44:14
prepared for and just one hitter, you tell me what you
44:17
weren't prepared for, We'll start, Brian.
44:22
So one thing I wasn't prepared for, I'll say this.
44:26
So we, we had a, we had a couple different game plans to kind of
44:31
neutralize what Stewart was able to do.
44:34
We had, we had some delayed silence snaps, had to clap long
44:39
delay. You get you get the you get the
44:41
silence snap there. And we also did in the running
44:47
game, especially in the in the option plan.
44:49
We were trying to get him kind of on island to make a decision,
44:54
use him as the option man for the majority of the of the
44:56
contest there. So I wasn't prepared for us to
45:00
have that type of game plan to slow down Stewart outside of
45:06
just shading coverage there and shipping him with an extra guy,
45:09
stuff like that. So I, I was surprised pleasantly
45:13
to see that they were, you know, taking that, that role seriously
45:17
there. So what about you?
45:19
Anything that you are not prepared for as you were looking
45:22
through. Yeah, well, I definitely wasn't
45:24
prepared for how much our, our D line really held up against
45:28
them. I, I was very impressed.
45:30
I wasn't, you know, I wasn't down on the D line, but I just,
45:33
I, I thought they held up really well against, you know,
45:35
formidable SEC opponent. At least you know, what we think
45:38
is a formidable SEC opponent. So I thought, I thought they're
45:41
really good there. Kelly, what about you?
45:46
I'm, I really, I ain't going to say I wasn't prepared, but like
45:51
their front was better than I thought it would be.
45:53
I didn't, you know, I thought, I don't think that we did
45:58
horrible, but I think that their front was really good.
46:01
I wasn't prepared for them to pressure US 25 times.
46:06
You were prepared for Stewart and maybe a BIOS.
46:08
Yeah, yeah, because we talked about a little bit, you know,
46:11
how they had all these guys GoPro and and they were still
46:14
pressuring us. I've seen somebody run through
46:17
Johnny Garrett and he had his legs up in there like he was on
46:20
a porno movie. I'm just saying it did look
46:24
good. Oh, man, for for me, I think
46:29
what I was kind of not prepared for, but I but I think I was
46:33
was, I think we went in the yardage like getting as many
46:37
yards as them was shocking. And then like dominating time of
46:42
possession with how good they, you know, they sounds good.
46:46
I mean, he missed that tackle. He took it right up on us, but
46:48
we won it. We slowed the game down.
46:50
We got in our game plan to how to play them.
46:55
So that kind of shocked me and and not necessarily losing by
46:59
losing by double digits was one thing, but I told you all what
47:02
was going to happen. We were going to fist fight this
47:04
thing and which they did and then they were going to hit just
47:07
one big play late. I said we did hit a play kick a
47:09
field goal. They got a touchdown instead.
47:12
That's what I saw happening. I saw a little bit, I saw a
47:15
little bit more scoring, but as far as in the game with that's
47:19
exactly the the fourth quarter, I oh, there you go.
47:23
That's a good one right here, the safety, because they pounded
47:28
him on that. But we wouldn't, we wouldn't -1
47:31
in that situation, not that it mattered, but we still wouldn't
47:35
-1 All right, I know we're going to hit on some of this when we
47:39
get on keys, but what's one thing?
47:41
Jonathan Talley, we got to do better moving forward.
47:47
We got to score more touchdowns than interceptions.
47:52
That's we probably need more touchdown passes than
47:55
interceptions for sure. We got to get some turnovers
47:57
too, you know, definitely got to get some turnovers, I'll say
47:59
that. So I think that's what we need
48:02
to do to kind of in this game. I don't even mean moving forward
48:07
into the year, this game, we need to get some turnovers.
48:11
Got it, Shelton. Red zone offense it was it was
48:16
pretty bad. I think I saw I saw a stat from
48:19
game on paper that our red zone efficiency was like in the 9th
48:22
percentile of all games this season.
48:24
So can't can't be settling for field goals, got to score
48:26
touchdowns. Yeah, score touchdowns, Ron
48:29
Ziegler. I will.
48:31
I will put this in tandem. Fewer turnovers and untimely
48:34
penalties. If you look at the way things
48:37
went down between the unsportsmanlike and the
48:42
interception and then the procedure penalty that resulted
48:46
in the repunt, that's about a 13 point swing there.
48:51
That's something you can't let happen.
48:53
You got when you when you get in the scoring area, you got to put
48:56
points on the board and you can't let dumb penalties and
48:59
turnovers affect that all. Right.
49:03
How can we wait a second? I'm going to put Phil's up here.
49:09
Yes, yes, we have to complete one more than one pass in their
49:12
territory 1000%. I think the one thing for me
49:16
that I'll say that we did good and I'll see us even do better.
49:21
One rush for a loss. We had one rush where we lost
49:28
shortage. That wasn't the case last year.
49:30
Even with Tootin, he got buried in the back till numerous times
49:34
we were. And I think it's more impressive
49:36
because we start looking at that line and Stewart and Barrett and
49:39
Thomas and saying so we say we we stalemated at the line of
49:44
scrimmage all every time but one.
49:46
And the one time was on the jet suite, which Brian and Tally
49:49
immediately said together in tandem, we missed the blah.
49:53
That's the only reason they got a loss.
49:55
But to me, do that moving forward, continue to do that
49:59
because if we're saying with South Carolina, we're
50:02
stalemating them holes are going to get opened against some of
50:05
these other defensive lines. So let's keep that going.
50:08
I just wanted to mention real quick before we get over to know
50:12
the enemy couple recruits the the kid down from Louisiana,
50:17
Cole Bergeron, the six, four and a half, 210 quarterback, three
50:22
star, pretty good pick up. I don't think I had that on my
50:28
bingo card for recruiting this year.
50:31
And then the other one, I don't know if I had this one either,
50:35
but I think they're undervaluing this kid because of, you know,
50:40
probably because he's coming to us, right?
50:42
Tally, he's coming to us and they ain't going to give him a
50:44
four-star. Andrew Rogers out of Grimsley
50:47
down in Greensboro, 66240. You know, he's like 3, somewhere
50:53
above 400 in the national rankings.
50:55
He's a four-star composite. I mean, 2 pretty good pickups in
51:02
the class. It's not going to be that big
51:04
because I think now what we're seeing is Virginia Tech is going
51:08
to be 15 to 18 high school recruits and it's going to be a
51:12
lot of formal guys. That's going to be our model
51:14
from now. So anything on either one of
51:17
these guys before we flip over to this weekend?
51:22
Robbie saying good, yeah, You up there with him?
51:26
You up there with Robbie? It's not far it off and right
51:29
about a 45 minute drive, all right.